How does the brain control sleep? Why do our brains need sleep in the first place? What are the health benefits of sleep? Why do some animals sleep more than others? What are dreams and why do our brains generate them? Why is it so hard to fall asleep when you’re stressed or hungry? How did sleep evolve?
In this video, we will explore the amazing science of sleep. We’ll see how specific brain regions, particularly the hypothalamus and brainstem, form circuits that make us fall asleep, stay asleep, and eventually wake up. We’ll look at the two primary stages of sleep and how they differ. I’ll explain the intriguing idea that sleep is actually a default state of the brain and that our brains have to actively keep us awake.
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Chapters:
00:00 What is sleep? Definitions of sleep
04:18 References and sources for this video
05:12 How to support Sense of Mind
07:29 What is sleep for? Why do we sleep?
10:52 Learning and memory benefits of sleep
13:46 Cellular, DNA, and waste clearing benefits of sleep
15:59 Immune system benefits of sleep
17:11 Brain development benefits of sleep
17:45 Why do smaller mammals sleep more than larger ones?
20:38 Why do babies sleep more than adults?
23:57 The two process model of sleep (sleep homeostasis and circadian rhythms)
26:52 Neural circuitry of wake (how the brain stays awake)
31:32 The sleep cycle (stages of sleep)
33:26 What is NREM sleep? What is slow wave activity (SWA)?
35:09 Can you learn in your sleep?
36:19 Neural circuitry of NREM (how the brain controls NREM sleep)
41:48 What is REM sleep? What is paradoxical sleep?
44:08 Neural circuitry of REM sleep (gatekeeper, generator, and maintainer circuits)
52:25 Why is it so hard to fall asleep on an empty stomach? (ghrelin hunger hormone)
54:56 Why is it so hard to fall asleep when you're stressed out?
57:01 The evolution of sleep: Which came first, sleep or wake?
59:00 Thank you! How to support this channel
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If you want to get better sleep, check out Dr. Andrew Huberman's podcast episodes on sleep:
[ Ссылка ]
My interview with Geoffrey West: [ Ссылка ]
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Thumbnail Brain Image Credit: Copyright © Society for Neuroscience (2017).
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Sources:
- Sulaman, B. A., Wang, S., Tyan, J., & Eban-Rothschild, A. (2022). Neuro-orchestration of sleep and wakefulness. Nature Neuroscience, 1-17. [ Ссылка ]
- Caviglia, G. (2021). Working on dreams, from neuroscience to psychotherapy. Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process, and Outcome, 24(2). [ Ссылка ]
- West, G. & Savage, V. (2021) Why do we sleep?. Aeon. [ Ссылка ]
- Klinzing, J. G., Niethard, N., & Born, J. (2019). Mechanisms of systems memory consolidation during sleep. Nature neuroscience, 22(10), 1598-1610.
- Friedrich, M., Mölle, M., Friederici, A. D., & Born, J. (2020). Sleep-dependent memory consolidation in infants protects new episodic memories from existing semantic memories. Nature Communications, 11(1), 1298.
